A dad has been jailed for beating his five-year-old step daughter to death and burying her in a garden - because he was so angry when the little girl soiled herself.

Siphelo Melfin, 32, told a court that he lost his temper when he noticed what his step-daughter Kungawo Mabusela had done.

He took off his belt and started hitting the little girl with it, despite the protests of his wife Nosikhumbuzo Mabusela, 28, and did not stop until she lost consciousness.

After realising that she was dead, the couple covered up the crime by secretly burying Kungawo in her step-grandmother's front garden.

The stepfather has been jailed for 20 years (Image: Getty)

In the township of Mdantsane, in south-eastern South Africa's Eastern Cape Province, Magistrate Bulelwa Gixana sentenced Melfin to 20 years behind bars for murder and a further three for perverting the course of justice.

She sentenced Mabusela, 28, to three years' imprisonment for perverting the course of justice.

The pair had expressed regret over the events.

But Ms Gixana described the crime as heinous, saying: "A child soiling herself is part of growing up and can't be her signing her own death warrant.

"She died a gruesome death at the hands of the people who were supposed to love and nurture her."

Mdantsane, which lies between East London and King William's Town, houses the second biggest shopping mall in the Eastern Cape Province.